Introduction
The 9/11 Commission Report, commonly known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States’ Final Report, is the official description of the events leading to the terrorist assaults on September 11, 2001. It was written at the request of US President George W. Bush and Congress by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States. On November 27, 2002, the Commission was constituted, and its final report was released on July 22, 2004. The report was due to be issued on May 27, 2004, but House Speaker Dennis Hastert agreed to a 60-day delay, which was extended to July 26. The 9/11 Commission Report investigated the US’s planning and response to the attacks, as well as making suggestions for future threats.
The report was published by a commission created by Congress and the President after many people had inquired how it happened and how the nation could avoid such tragedy. The commission evaluated almost 2.5 million pages of documents and examined over 1,200 people in ten countries as part of their assignment (Authenticated U.S. Government Information, 2014). It included almost each senior figure from the recent and historical managements in charge of subjects covered by their mandate. They aimed to be unbiased, objective, detailed, and neutral. They made it clear that they wanted to disclose as much of their inquiry as possible with the Americans. They convened 19 days of proceedings and received a public hearing from 160 people to that goal. The study described the al-Qaeda attacks’ preparation and execution, as well as the intelligence and legislative communities’ responses to intelligence cautions of an assault in the preceding months and the national security system’s response to the assaults after they occurred.
The 9/11 Commission Report looked into the United States’ readiness and response to the attacks and suggestions for future threats. In 2003, the 9/11 commission held its initial sessions in New York City. The report delivered its conclusions in a public report on July 22, 2004 (Auerswald, 2005). The Commission recommends the National Intelligence Director to replace the Director of Central Intelligence, information procedures to provide incentives for sharing, and a specialized and integrated National Security Workforce to be developed at the FBI. The United States can only overcome these political and philosophical distortions (NSS, 2017). The report was presented by ten commissioners, five republicans, and five Democrats, who were all elected by chosen leaders from the nation’s capital during a great partisan division.
The Recommendation that the National Intelligence Director Replace the Position of Director of Central Intelligence
The splitting of the governance of aptitude community capabilities was a significant problem. While the CIA was formerly at the center of our national intelligence abilities, it has had less influence over the use of the state’s images and signs intelligence assets. This problem has been applied in three federal agencies situated inside the Department of Defense since the Cold War. Another issue was a lack of ability to prioritize and shift resources. The organizations mainly were structured across what they collected or how they collected it, although the agencies set the collecting priorities at a national level.
The DCI must be able to reach beyond departments and redistribute effort when making challenging resource decisions. A lack of clear principles and norms throughout the foreign-domestic split was another issue. The intelligence community’s leadership should be allowed to merge data gathered abroad with data gathered in the United States. This information collecting can then subject all work, regardless of where it is done, to a consistent degree of value in how it is gathered, processed, presented, shared, and assessed. A set of universal intelligence personnel norms can help a team of experts collaborate more successfully by removing service-specific mindsets from the equation.
Factors
The term Director of National Intelligence was coined in 1955. A study commissioned by Congress recommended that the Director of Central Intelligence select an assistant to control the CIA so that the director may concentrate on general intelligence synchronization. Several further examinations of the Intelligence Community performed by the governmental and managerial branches reiterated this theme over the following five eras. The September 11 assaults hastened a long-standing demand for massive intelligence reorganization and the appointment of a Director of National Intelligence (Devine, 2018). The 9/11 Commission’s report, released in July 2004, called for significant changes to intelligence organizations, including creating a National Intelligence Director.
Discussion
On major matters, the National Intelligence Director must be in command of state security centers that would offer all-source assessment and intelligence processes to the entire government. The Commission believed that the center should be the analytical component of the proposed National Counterterrorism Center in this case. It would be placed alongside the systems integration unit in the President’s Executive Office, establishing the NCTC. Other state intelligence centers, such as those devoted to counter-proliferation, criminality, pharmaceuticals, and China, would be housed under the appropriate agency.
The National Intelligence Director would present a consolidated state intelligence budget that represents the primacies of the National Security Council and includes an ideal stability of scientific and human intelligence collection and examination. They would be set aside for aptitude agencies with the authority to apportion cash to the suitable agency if the budget is approved. They will also have the power to reallocate budgets among national intelligence services to encounter any new priorities. The National Intelligence Director should commend and present to the president those who will direct national intelligence capabilities (Best Jr, 2011, p. 9). CIA, DIA, FBI Intelligence Office, NSA, NGA, NRO, Department of Homeland Security’s Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate are state intelligence capabilities. This national effort would be supervised by the National Intelligence Director, aided by three assistants, each of whom would embrace a crucial place in one of the constituent organizations.
Findings
The national government quickly implemented reforms after the Commission released the statement. In August 2004, President Bush approved four Executive Orders that, to the extent practicable, reinforced and reorganized the Intelligence Community without the need for legislation. Both the Congress and Senate enacted bills in Congress that made significant changes to the 1947 National Security Act (The National Military Strategy of the United States of America, 2015). The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, enacted into law by President Bush on December 17, 2004, culminated in extensive negotiations to bring the two pieces of legislation together.
President Bush entitled U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John D. Negroponte as his first state security adviser in February 2005 and promoted U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden to General. On April 21, 2005, Ambassador Negroponte and Gen. Hayden were sworn into office in the Oval Office, and the ODNI began its processes on April 22, 2005 (Fingar, 2022, 141). The Western intelligence agencies have been focused on combating terrorism since the dawn of the twenty-first century, particularly the worldwide Islamist terrorist threat. As a result, intelligence services and resources have been restructured and reoriented to prioritize tactical C.T. intelligence. While this has shown to be effective in general, it has come at a strategic cost.
The Recommendation that Information Procedure Should Provide Incentives for Sharing
Problem
There were several recommendations for enhancing the exchange of information among federal agencies at all stages in the United States. The private industry, and certain alien states, to counter terrorists and strengthen homeland security were among the reactions incited by the terrorist invasion on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. On July 22, 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States was one of the most current to make recommendations in this area (The 9/11 Commission Report, 2004). Because the Commission’s report came at a period when progress on information sharing was already well underway, its suggestions were broad.
The United States administration has access to a tremendous quantity of data. When non-traditional intelligence files, such as customs and immigration data, are included, the reservoir grows exponentially. However, the U.S. government’s mechanism for processing and utilizing what it possesses is inadequate (UNT Digital Library, 2005). Officials begged the Commission to bring devotion to problems with the unfulfilling back-end side of federal programs in interviews across the government. Due to consequence of the Cold War, each intelligence department has its exclusive security measures (Sylvia et al., 2013, 3). Counterintelligence concerns remain even if other spies have replaced the old Soviet foe.
Factors
This commission suggestion identified the need-to-know culture of data security as a severe hindrance to thorough intelligence analysis. The Commission concluded that, while the national government has access to vast amounts of data, administrative and organizational cultural impediments limit the government’s capacity to exploit these assets. According to the panel, two key elements have aided in perpetuating need-to-know information practices. One was a lack of comprehensive internal information-sharing mechanisms, which led to information compartmentalization as a standard practice rather than regular distribution to the exterior community of users. As per the Commission, current processes only enabled information to be given if someone directly requested it and only followed classification and other safety precautions. Such a strategy aimed to prevent releasing information that might represent a security risk. However, according to the Commission, these security processes can negate the benefits of states exchanging information if carried too far.
Another element the Commission as maintaining need-to-know information practices was a corporate culture that promotes disincentives to information sharing, which is widespread across agencies. There are no penalties for not sharing information, according to the report. However, if the information is given or divulged in violation of protocol, criminal, civil, and organizational fines may be imposed, depending on the circumstances. The report claimed that the focus on security had resulted in over-classification and information compartmentalization among agencies. By contributing to insufficient analysis and duplication of work by numerous organizations, impeded access to data can have logical and financial costs.
Discussion
Whether gathered in Pakistan or Texas, intelligence about international sabotage should be evaluated, turned into information, and disseminated per the quality criteria. The logical counter-argument is that materials and procedures may differ significantly between locales. As a result, the Commission recommends that data be segregated from the methods and techniques used to get it when a statement is first generated (Kaiser & Halchin, 2012, 4). The report should start with the most accessible but useful data. As a result, the most significant number of participants can somehow have access to that information. Any user may query further if further information is needed, with access given or prohibited according to the network’s rules and questions, leaving a paper trail to govern who retrieved the information. However, the queries may not arrive unless specialists at the network’s edge can quickly find the indications that lead to them (Congress, 2014). The Commission recommends distributing data horizontally, spanning new systems that span multiple agencies.
Findings
Given the importance of information technology security in recent years, the subject of information security sharing across organizations to reduce security breaches has piqued the interest of professionals and scholars alike. Under a Presidential Decision Directive, the U.S. federal government sponsored the construction of various industry-based Information Exchange and Analysis Centers (ISACs) to encourage discovering and sharing network security information among businesses. The ISAC’s primary purpose is to share security vulnerabilities and technology solutions linked to ways for preventing, detecting, and fixing security breaches. Nevertheless, there are a variety of intriguing economic challenges that will impact this goal’s realization.
The Recommendation that a Specialized and Integrated National Security Workforce Should be Established at the FBI
The FBI has historically prioritized its unlawful justice mandate over its national defense duty, which is a source of worry. The primary aim for this is the high claim for FBI assistance in criminal cases around the country. The law roundly chastised the FBI in the 1970s for the excessive domestic intelligence probes made public. In the 1980s and 1990s, the FBI established an extensive surveillance mission and was the central organization examining alien terrorist collections working inside the United States (“The 9/11 Commission Report”, 2001, 416). However, the country had gone away from such types of inquiries.
The FBI’s role will be more concentrated under the Commission’s recommendations, but it was still critical. The FBI must be capable of guiding tens of thousands of officials and other workers to gather astuteness in America’s towns. The guidance could be interrogating informants, gathering intelligence and searches, monitoring individuals, collaborating with local officials, and doing it with utmost precision and legal compliance. The work of the FBI on the cities of the United States is, therefore, a domestic version of the CIA’s operations officers abroad, functioning under the United States Constitution and different rules and norms.
Factors
The 9/11 Commission members were delighted by the agents’ diligence in chasing down facts, tolerantly going the additional mile, and functioning an additional month to provide truths in place of supposition. To become better intelligence officers, FBI representatives and researchers in the ground needed consistent support and devoted resources. They needed to be awarded for obtaining informants and assembling and sharing information in different and broader ways than what would usually be done in a formal criminal investigation (The Donovan plan for the establishment of a central intelligence authority, 1994)). Employees of the FBI must report and analyze their findings in ways that the Bureau has never undertaken before.
Discussion
The FBI is a minor part of the national crime control group in the United States, primarily of national and native law implementation organizations. The information-sharing network and the FBI’s work via local Security Task Forces should foster a mutual association. Through this relationship, the federal and municipal agents know what data they are searching for and, in turn, obtain some of the data being established about what is going on in their communities. The Defense Department will also play a crucial role in this collaboration. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 delegated broad powers to the undersecretary for data analyses and infrastructure protection. This directorate’s job is to record terrorist intimidations to the country against our evaluated weaknesses to guide the nation’s efforts to counter terrorist threats (Congress.gov, 2022). One of the directorate’s designated responsibilities is assimilating and evaluating data from Homeland Security’s core departments. To ensure that the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate can carry out its duty, the receptionist of homeland safety must certify that these constituents operate together.
Findings
After the 9/11 attacks, Director Mueller stated that the FBI would refocus its operations, with counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and cybercrime as the top three priorities. He also promised to strengthen the FBI’s intelligence program by bringing together and centralizing command of the Bureau’s previously dispersed intelligence capabilities, both at headquarters and in the field. He also claimed that intelligence has always been a core competency of the FBI and has always been at the heart of the organization’s investigative mission (DOD. 2014, p. 8). Mueller said that the process of intelligent specifications, collection, assessment, and dissemination had and would continue to discipline the organization’s intelligence efforts.
In 2005, the FBI announced that it would create a devoted subsidized staffing needs for agents in the intelligence platform. Those agents were assigned to function as collectors, target inventors, and reporters. It also intends to establish a strategic intelligence section within the DI. The FBI also intends to include strategic analysis in each FIG and completely integrate Security and Intelligence Community partners (Intelligence Community Directive, 2013). In addition, the FBI will appoint an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) for each of the Field Offices that now have only one ASAC. Before accepting the position, this employee will be trained in intelligence methods and procedures and will be responsible for steering that office’s national safety mission.
Since 9/11, the FBI has implemented or been urged to implement several organizational, business, and resource distribution changes to improve its intelligence program. The Bureau originally formed an Office of Intelligence to focus its covert operations, currently renamed the DI due to P.L. (Intelligence Community Capability Directive, 2022). Field Intelligence Groups were also established in each of the Bureau’s 56 field offices. Additional intelligence experts and Special Agents committed to intelligence collecting have also been hired.
Conclusion
The Federal Reserve, the New York State Banking Department, and the Securities and Exchange Commission have been working together to analyze events following the September 11 terrorist attacks to improve the financial system’s overall resilience. Over the last few months, discussions with prominent financial sector representatives have aided this effort. The results of these sessions, which are detailed here, suggest that adopting more strong business continuity strategies all over the financial sector might have considerable benefits. The 9/11 Commission suggests a global plan to combat terrorism that includes targeting terrorists and their institutions, preventing and planning for future terrorist acts, and limiting the formation of terrorist organizations. These objectives can be met by a concerted effort that involves interagency intelligence sharing, the recruitment of a National Intelligence Director, the establishment of a National Terrorism Center, and a better structure of America’s homeland defenses.
References
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